Versus: HTC One M8 vs HTC One M8S

Screen, design, power and camera

HTC's 2014 flagship might have been superseded by the HTC One M9, but it's still a brilliant handset with a stylish design and plenty of power.

Being a year old it's also more affordable than the M9, but if you want to save even more money you might want to consider the newly announced HTC One M8S, which is a cut-price version of the HTC One M8.

Of course you don't cut the price without cutting the specs and that's exactly what's happened here, so we've put the two phones head to head to see just how much has changed.

Screen

The HTC One M8 and One M8S are packing identical screens, so whichever phone you pick you'll get to enjoy a big, sharp and impressive 5.0-inch 1080 x 1920 display with a pixel density of 441 pixels per inch.

For what it's worth that's also the same as the HTC One M9, so you're really not sacrificing anything here, though some brands have moved their flagships on to QHD displays.

Design

There's almost nothing to choose in the design of the two phones either, and that's a huge win for the midrange HTC One M8S, as both handsets have a sumptuous metal shell that curves comfortably into your palm and looks almost unbeatably premium.

There are some small differences in the dimensions though, with the HTC One M8S coming in at a marginally fatter 9.55mm thick, compared to the M8's 9.4mm thick body. That hasn't translated to a difference in weight though, with both phones tipping the scales at 160g.

Power

This is where the two phones really start to differ, as while the HTC One M8 has a 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor the HTC One M8S has a 1.7GHz octa-core Snapdragon 615 processor, which despite the larger number of cores is likely to lead to inferior performance as it's a midrange chip.

The two phones both have 2GB of RAM though, as well as both running Android 5.0 Lollipop, so while the One M8S might not be quite as high end it shouldn't feel lacking in power.

Camera

The two phones cameras also differ. The HTC One M8 has a 4 UltraPixel duo camera on the back and a 5MP snapper round the front. The HTC One M8S also has a 5MP front-facing camera and its rear camera is a duo one as well, but it's a 13MP one.

In practice that's likely to mean you'll get sharper images from it, but it almost certainly won't fare as well in low light. Whether it's an upgrade or a downgrade is debatable, it's more just different.

Battery, storage, features, price and verdict

Battery

Surprisingly the battery in the HTC One M8S has had a bit of a boost over the M8, which may explain why the phone is slightly thicker. The M8S has a 2840mAh juice pack (the same size as the HTC One M9) while the M8 has a 2600mAh one.

That might lead to better life than the 1.5-2 days you'll typically get from the HTC One M8, but it's hard to say for sure given the M8S also has a different processor.

Storage

With up to 32GB of built in storage the HTC One M8 has double that of the strictly 16GB HTC One M8S. Don't panic though, because if you feel like storing your entire movie collection on the phone you still can, as both handsets also have a microSD card slot with support for cards of up to 128GB.

Features

There's nothing really to choose when it comes to extra features. Both phones run HTC's slick Sense 6.0 interface (though notably not Sense 7) and both have BlinkFeed and a duo camera, albeit with different megapixel counts.

Both handsets also have HTC's impressive BoomSound speakers, so you can get the party started without a proper sound system, you know, if you like really lame parties.

Price

This could be the big reason to consider the HTC One M8S over the standard M8, or not, depending on how it pans out.

See the HTC One M8S has an RRP of £379.99 SIM-free in the UK, which is substantially cheaper than the £549.99 HTC is asking for the One M8.

But no-one in their right mind is paying HTC's asking price, as you can get the One M8 for around £375 elsewhere. Now it's likely that other stores will quickly undercut HTC's asking price for the One M8S too, but whether they'll undercut it by much remains to be seen.

After all the One M8 is a year old, so it's understandable that it's available at a discounted price. The One M8S on the other hand is brand new, so despite being less powerful it might not be much if any less expensive.

Verdict

There's not a huge amount of difference between the HTC One M8 and the HTC One M8S, but surprisingly some of what differences there are potentially work out in the M8S's favour. Its battery for example is bigger, though it remains to be seen whether that translates into better life.

It also has a higher megapixel count on its camera, though at the expense of the larger UltraPixels found in the HTC One M8.

On the other hand it has less built in storage and while it has a newer processor with more cores it's a processor that's been designed for midrange phones, so the quad-core Snapdragon 801 in the HTC One M8 should still outperform it.

Other than that the two handsets are much the same, with the same premium build and large 1080p screens.

In theory the HTC One M8S is cheaper, which could make it a very strong buy, but given the price cuts the HTC One M8 has had that might not pan out in practice, in which case it will be a harder sell. Though the larger battery and 13MP camera could still win it some fans.

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